Feeding: Calories or ounces/per pound of cat

[kim and simon]

Hi all,

We've been doing the FD thing for about 3 months!

Simon has lost some weight--he was overweight at diagnosis. He weighs 12.8 pounds down from about 14. The vet wants him at 10 pounds. His recommendation was 5.5 ounces of wet food per DAY, but as I've been doing some digging, I think that might be a bit low. I found a guideline of 3 oz per 3.5 pounds of cat on Fancy Feast website. Wellness canned food says 5.5 ounces wet per 6-8 pounds of cat. That would make the amount for a 10 pound cat more like 8-9 ounces of food.

My question is, does anyone have a recommendation or source (link) for ideal feeding per weight of cat? I've found numerous threads but no "rule." And I know. . .ECID, but there ought to be some benchmark to go by.

We also have a civvie who has slimmed down some. I know we want to do this slowly and not cause fatty liver by going too fast. Just making sure I'm not starving the inmates, because I know they ask for food every time I step near the kitchen!

Thanks!
Kim

 

[kimouette]

Hi there!

Do you have any idea of the calories in the food you are feeding your cat with?
Read page 5 of the following document (and read the entire document if you wish to learn a little more about feline nutrition!):
http://dels-old.nas.edu/dels/rpt_briefs ... _final.pdf
and if you want to find out the amout of calories you can use this tool (it gives you the calories per onces and per 100g in the bottom of the page :
http://www.scheyderweb.com/cats/catfood.html

 

[Tena and Curry(GA)]

hi kim

tena and curry here.

i had curry follow dr. lisa's approach to losing weight. it was harder when she was getting the insulin since she would sometimes get that extra bit of food to jack up her numbers. curry was 12.75 lbs at her highest....we got down to 10.25 just before going off the juice and then she has lost another pound over the last year. she is almost at her ideal wt of 9 pound...she now 9.25. her metabolism is kicking in now but it was really slow before the weight loss. here's the link for dr. lisa's suggestions.....http://catinfo.org/?link=felineobesity. and i still weigh her and her civvie.

you are doing such a great job w/simon...i've been following his journey here.....i see you are a dentist....my dad was dentist and taught at the ut dental school a zillion years ago.....anyway, keep up the good work.....and i bet ole simon will be getting off the juice in the near future....

hugs,
tena and curry

 

[Carl & Polly & Bob (GA)]

I've read "20-30 calories per pound of ideal body weight, per day" in order to maintain that ideal weight. I think the variance takes into account activity level of the cat in question and other factors. My cat, Bob, is pretty lazy. But the vet recommended an ideal weight for him of 13.5 to 14 pounds (he used to weigh 22). I fed him more when he was on insulin, but since them, I have kept his caloric intake between 240-280 calories a day, and he's been within a couple ounces of 14 pounds for the past 3 weigh-ins.

Janet and Binky's charts do contain calories per can information, which I found extremely helpful. I just wrote the calories on the cans and stacked them on the shelf in daily allotments.

Carl